Questions Of Innocence

Legal Roadblocks Thwart New Evidence On Appeal

JACKSONVILLE — By the time Leo Jones was executed in Florida's electric chair in March 1998 for the sniper killing of a police officer, the case that had sent him to Death Row 16 years before had slowly but unmistakably come apart.

The main witness against him had recanted. Two key officers in the case had left the Police Department under a cloud, and allegations that one of them beat Jones before he supposedly confessed had gained credence.

More than a dozen people had implicated another man as the killer, saying they either saw him carrying a rifle as he ran from the crime scene or heard him brag he had shot the officer.

Even Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw, a former chief of the capital crimes division of the state attorney's office in Jacksonville, wrote that Jones' case had become "a horse of a different color."

Newly discovered evidence, Shaw wrote, "casts serious doubt on Jones' guilt." He and one other judge voted to grant Jones a new trial.

But a five-judge majority of the court ruled that Jones' claims had no merit. One week later, Jones, 47, was put to death.

In the American system of criminal justice, the presumption of innocence vanishes once a defendant has been found guilty, and the burden of proof shifts from the prosecution to the defense.

Although Death Row inmates are given numerous opportunities for appeal--and some have been able to win their freedom--it can be enormously difficult to persuade appeals courts to embrace new evidence of innocence.

Evidence that a defendant could capitalize on at trial has less potency on appeal. Issues of law and procedure, rather than of innocence, dominate.

Those obstacles exist even though some convictions are built on weak foundations. A Tribune investigation of executions in the United States found dozens of cases where prosecutors relied on dubious evidence or lawyers failed to mount a vigorous defense, undermining the belief that when the state employs an irreversible punishment, it must do so with unshakable certainty.

More than two years after Jones was executed, there are lingering doubts about his guilt, and questions about whether the system of appeals in capital cases adequately addresses claims of innocence.

At the same time, a Tribune reinvestigation of Jones' case has uncovered new evidence that corroborates Jones' longstanding claim that his confession was coerced after Jacksonville police beat him.

In an interview with the Tribune, the lead detective on the case said he saw another officer attack Jones while he was in custody and had to pull him off Jones. The detective's admission contradicts his testimony at trial and in later court hearings.

The assistant state attorney who prosecuted the case said in an interview that he suspects that police, angry over the murder of a colleague, physically abused Jones--though he insists Jones was guilty.

"To me, the most disturbing point of the case has always been his confession and the events leading up to his confession," said Ralph N. Greene III, now an attorney in private practice. "That series of facts always bothered me as a prosecutor."

Two jurors at Jones' trial have told the Tribune they now have misgivings about their guilty verdict, saying that from what they now know about the case, the evidence they heard at Jones' trial was incomplete.

"I think we reached a verdict that made sense based on evidence we heard at the time," said Robert Manley, an advertising copywriter who voted for a life sentence.

"But then the evidence changed. That changed my thinking."

Said Nadine Appleby, a retired secretary who voted for a death sentence: "If we had known some of these things that had come up afterward, it might have made a difference."

Heavier burden of proof

In the U.S. system of criminal justice, appellate courts are reluctant to second-guess jury verdicts and usually defer to rulings by trial judges that involve issues of fact. After all, juries and trial judges observe the demeanor of witnesses and are seen as best positioned to judge their credibility.

Recantations, where witnesses disavow earlier testimony for a new version of the truth, are by law viewed skeptically.

New witnesses are viewed with distrust if they have waited years, or even decades, to come forward, rather than offering their account immediately after a crime.

Rules also have been written to bring finality to appeals--in essence, to balance the demands for fairness with a need for efficiency. Deadlines are in place to keep the justice system manageable and to prevent defendants from appealing indefinitely, although they also can hinder defendants who make legitimate, but untimely, claims.

These circumstances make it difficult for a prisoner trying to prove he was wrongfully convicted.